When Spartacus: Vengeance star Liam McIntyre wanted to propose to Erin Hasan, he used the magical backdrop of Disney World in Florida to make it a dream engagement for his girlfriend of two years.

"Liam had one of the characters from Cinderella come to my door," Hasan tells Australia's TV Week. "They took me to a room and I got a makeover. They had custom-made me a dress based on my three favorite Disney princesses."

After months of clashing swords and seeking vengeance, Andy Whitfield – the chiseled gladiator from TV's Spartacus: Blood and Sand – ended the first season exhausted with an aching back.

"It's one of the most extreme things I've ever gone through," he'd recall of the role that made the Welsh-born actor a star. "There was a lot of pain at the end of that. I wasn't sure what it was. And it wasn't going away."

In March 2010 doctors found out why. The then-38-year-old Whitfield had cancer, specifically stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. After a relatively mild round of chemotherapy, by September he felt healthy enough to return to the New Zealand set for season two.

Lucy Lawless pleaded guilty Thursday to trespassing, and had a more serious charge of burglary dropped, after she and seven other Greenpeace New Zealand activists boarded an oil-drilling ship in February to keep it from leaving port.

The Spartacus: Vengeance actress, 44, could face three years in prison at her sentencing in September, but told reporters in Auckland that she doesn't expect jail time, as she is a first-time offender and the protest was peaceful.

"I had to do what I had to do," she said, reports the New Zealand Herald. "We want to tell [deep-sea oil drillers] absolutely under no circumstances is this a good idea. They are robbing our children of their birthright to a clean and healthy planet, and they know it."

Australian newcomer Liam McIntyre is causing quite a stir with his brooding, shirtless, breakout performance as rebel gladiator Spartacus in the new season of Starz's drama Spartacus: Vengeance, airing Fridays at 10 p.m.

Andy Whitfield, who starred in TV's Spartacus: Blood and Sand – only to leave the show to treat a recurrence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma – died Sunday of the disease at age 39.

The actor's wife Vashti said in a statement that the "beautiful young warrior" died on a "sunny Sydney morning" in the "arms of his loving wife," the Associated Press reports.

Born in Wales and a resident of Australia, Whitfield was preparing for a second season in September 2010 when he announced that he would not be returning to the Starz series so he could undergo aggressive cancer treatment. He was replaced by actor Liam McIntyre.